Get rid of Windows Phone 8 and instead use Windows RT across all ARM devices. Add a XAML view for phone screen in Windows 8 apps and call it a day.

Windows Phone 8 and it's stuck in purgatory limbo craptastic API needs to die if Microsoft has to survive on phone devices. The platform hasn't moved an inch since end 2012. Tiny meaningless changes which are completely failing to keep up with iOs and Android.

Seriously what the fuck has the Windows Phone 8 team doing all this time? What do they do all day? Post nasty messages to IOS and Android dev mailing lists and run out into the bushes giggling like little girls?

What Microsoft needs to do is completely remove all their old, crusty APIs, and replace them with Metro variants, and ship that on Phones, tablets, and in the Start screen on the desktop.

I think that it's pretty much a given that, between iOS, Android 4.X, and Windows Phone 8, WP8 is /vastly/ lighter on resources. If Nokia/Microsoft started using Android, there's no way a device like the Lumia 520 would ever exist. If you want to know what a responsive and smooth phone looks like for <$70, check a 520 out.

That's just something that doesn't happen with Android. Can you imagine running Jelly Bean/ KK on an MSM8930 w/ 512MB single channel 533mhz RAM? That would be quite the disaster.

In short, Microsoft really has no incentive to want to make an Android phone. It would go against their fundamental strategy of "throw money at a losing idea for a decade until it becomes profitable." (Xbox).

>"WP8 is /VASTLY/ lighter than iOS">"512MB RAM"

wat? You do realize that iOS 7 runs on devices with 512mb of ram, and that even the iPad 5 only has 1GB of RAM total right?

I would never advocate that Microsoft abandon their platform for Android, but this article challenges us to accept claims like "can't", which I don't believe are supported by reality.

It is commonly reported that more than 70 percent of Android smartphones in China do not offer Google Play services. We already see that there is a significant market that doesn't care about 100% application compatibility, or Google services.

In addition, Microsoft could curate their own store with apps that have had minor updates to use Microsoft location services instead of those from Google.

Again, I don't suggest they should do it, just that I can't see this as impossible.

He didn't say it was. He said it'll be hard and probably pointless. And China is China, they are pretty heterogeneous, it works there. Microsoft is a different story.

Why would anyone suggest with any seriousness that Microsoft should abandon their NT-kernel-based smartphone OS with a Linux-kernel-based fork of Android? I really can't understand how that sounds like a good idea, especially as WP8 is actually doing pretty well in some countries. Their problem in the USA is more of an image and awareness issue than anything...

The only places it is doing well is where people have limited funds, and they buy very low end Luminas for a price that nets Microsoft nothing.

I changed jobs a while back and I am regularly taking public transit for the first time in my life.

On the ground it looks much worse for Microsoft in Mobile than the impression I get from the net.

What I see are Tons of iPhones/Android phones (and a significant number of Blackberries). I have yet to see a single Windows phone.

I see lots of E-ink readers (Kindles/Kobos, etc), some iPads and some Android tablets, and again I have yet to see a single Windows tablet.

I see a myriad of devices in transit every day and I can count the number powered by a Microsoft OS on one finger. That is it. I have seen ONE MS powered device used in transit (someone with a Dell Laptop).

Meanwhile, in Italy Windows Phone is now bigger than iOS (on new phones). On a global scale what you see on your commute is pretty insignificant. I think I've seen two Windows Phones IRL the last years, but that doesn't change the fact they are growing.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

AOSP (or if you prefer, Android stripped of GMS) functionality is a well suited mobile platform if one's objective is to deliver a feature phone or dumb phone to market. It includes the fundamental elements (a sound foundation) upon which further software can be layered to enhance platform functionality.

If objectives dictate the full functionality of Android, GMS is required in addition to AOSP. If objectives only dictate a kinda-almost-Androidish-like level of functionality, AOSP plus considerable best coding efforts will suffice, & the platform can then be identified as STANdroid (or Baidu, or ANNEdroid or ...).

Regardless of whatever exacting, brain-numbing, coding gymnastics are applied to AOSP, the very easily understood fact remains that it is pointless for Microsoft to reboot their mobile efforts upon:1.) Android (with GMS), as this business model surrenders the future of MS mobile platforms to Google2.) STANdroid, as this platfom, while retaining control over future GMS-like direction, still fails to provide Android compatibility & sufficient functionality to meet Android-like performance expectations

The absolute best that an Android-based platform reboot can provide to MS is either "6 on one hand" or "1/2 dozen on the other hand". In no eventuality can such a reboot yield the mandatory total of "10 out of 10" required for a serious business to market a serious platform capable of sustaining even the faintest of hopes for "success", however "success" may happen to be defined for a given set of market conditions.

There is a good discussion to be had about Microsoft using Android, and a lot of good reasons for them to not do so... which makes it especially unfortunate that instead this was turned into yet another article here of increasingly specious and misleading claims about the "open-sourceness" of Android and Google's hidden plan to Control Android And Then The World.

It's really not, although that is certainly a discussion to be had. That you work for Google on Android and that you are convinced of Google's complete and absolute altruism in that matter is, in and of itself, very interesting.

It really is interesting. I read that comment, and the first thing that came to mind was this post is defensive. And someone is doing more that drinking the kool-aid, I think they might be drowning in it. Fact is Google will bar you from ever being allowed to make a normal Android device if you make a device using a fork. That doesn't sound like altruistic, please use our open source product as you wish, kinda thinking. That's hard-line, play by our rules, or receive boot to ass.

[I don't know what you are smoking but I want some! You have no idea how fucking awesome it is coding C# on Visual Studio for both WP8 and Win8. My company publishes across all four major platforms and consistently it is the Win dev team with their toolset who are the happiest in terms of productivity and ease of development. ...

...I know people love Visual Studio for some reason but for me the only thing that's remotely impressive is the debugger. The editing and building is pretty bad IMHO. Things like functional auto-build, in line errors and warnings (ie they are not in a separate window as if it's 1990) and a pretty weak documentation (MSDN is a mess IME, every API exist in multiple versions and it's way to difficult to find a "path" so you are linking up the correct versions of all the APIs.)...I would just like everyone to stop saying that VisualStudio is so awesome in order to get the people working on it to start fixing these (fairly) low hanging issues.

This is not limitation of Visual Studio, but limitation and lack of your knowledge and experience with VS. Any subwindow can be positioned anywhere in or outside of main window.

No idea about autobuild. Errors detected on the fly are highlighted by Intellisense inline in source code. Warnings&Errors are like any window of VS. Moved them were you want them... (also other windowing functionality present like grouping.)

As for MSDN, web based is bit harder to navigate without experience, but can be done. Simply ensure that if available it always shows version of VS you use. Or alternatively use offline version.

===

Visual Studio has way more to offer. You haven't even scratched surface. (For that matter not even me. ) Not scratched UI wise nor functionality wise. (And even more functionality is on the way including more of auto-formatting and like) What you described are not missing things, because they were already implemented.

How about an open source GMS? It'd take a dedicated company with deep pockets, but if Amazon duplicated current GMS and enough developers started targeting it as the lowest common denominator, you could wrest that control from Google, couldn't you?

Maybe Apple will do this just to screw with Google

This isn't really feasible. Most of what GMS is is connections to Google-run services. You could open source the connections, but all that gives you is a bunch of plugs. Those services (e.g. Google Maps) aren't going to be provided for free from anyone. The code might be free, but the servers running maps queries and figuring out traffic updates (and the people/stuff keeping them going) are expensive.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

AOSP (or if you prefer, Android stripped of GMS) functionality is a well suited mobile platform if one's objective is to deliver a feature phone or dumb phone to market. It includes the fundamental elements (a sound foundation) upon which further software can be layered to enhance platform functionality.

If objectives dictate the full functionality of Android, GMS is required in addition to AOSP. If objectives only dictate a kinda-almost-Androidish-like level of functionality, AOSP plus considerable best coding efforts will suffice, & the platform can then be identified as STANdroid (or Baidu, or ANNEdroid or ...).

Regardless of whatever exacting, brain-numbing, coding gymnastics are applied to AOSP, the very easily understood fact remains that it is pointless for Microsoft to reboot their mobile efforts upon:1.) Android (with GMS), as this business model surrenders the future of MS mobile platforms to Google2.) STANdroid, as this platfom, while retaining control over future GMS-like direction, still fails to provide Android compatibility & sufficient functionality to meet Android-like performance expectations

The absolute best that an Android-based platform reboot can provide to MS is either "6 on one hand" or "1/2 dozen on the other hand". In no eventuality can such a reboot yield the mandatory total of "10 out of 10" required for a serious business to market a serious platform capable of sustaining even the faintest of hopes for "success", however "success" may happen to be defined for a given set of market conditions.

I'm not really discussing the feasibility of MS switching to Android. What I am discussing and refuting is the concept that has repeatedly come up in this thread that, somehow, AOSP isn't a full OS because it lacks the services that are included in GMS -- services that, while extremely popular, are not necessary for day-to-day operations and can be substituted with others (as in the Amazon example). AOSP is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when GMS is installed, in much the same way that Windows is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when Office is installed. To say it's not a true operating system because it lacks these extras (popular though they may be), or that Google is somehow evil for only providing source for the basic OS and attendant utilities and not their entire cloud of services, is just silly. Hell, every Windows version prior to 8 lacked many capabilities that are part of GMS; does that mean those weren't true OS's either?

I'm not really discussing the feasibility of MS switching to Android. What I am discussing and refuting is the concept that has repeatedly come up in this thread that, somehow, AOSP isn't a full OS because it lacks the services that are included in GMS -- services that, while extremely popular, are not necessary for day-to-day operations and can be substituted with others (as in the Amazon example). AOSP is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when GMS is installed, in much the same way that Windows is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when Office is installed. To say it's not a true operating system because it lacks these extras (popular though they may be), or that Google is somehow evil for only providing source for the basic OS and attendant utilities and not their entire cloud of services, is just silly. Hell, every Windows version prior to 8 lacked many capabilities that are part of GMS; does that mean those weren't true OS's either?

While most people here are basically saying, why bother forking AOSP when Microsoft will have to rebuild almost everything from ground up again on AOSP. It's not like WP doesn't already do everything AOSP does and more.

Of course Google's not evil to try to protect their territory. It just makes you go hmm every time you see Google says something.

To say it's not a true operating system because it lacks these extras (popular though they may be), or that Google is somehow evil for only providing source for the basic OS and attendant utilities and not their entire cloud of services, is just silly.

Which is why most of the people here aren't really saying they're evil. In fact, Peter has specifically and repeatedly said he thinks it's their right. Google keeping GMS separate is their right, as the authors of the software and, in my opinion, the decision has drastically improved Android. Google very clearly wants to keep control of their software, and that's their choice.

It's not evil. It's not open, either.

And if they take parts of the OS out of open-source and let the old stuff depreciate, they don't get the same level of credit for being open-source, either. They get to choose, it's their right, and whatever they decide, they need to be described accordingly. Android is much less open than it used to be, because the things that used to be a part of Android, the OS, are now built as a part of GMS.

OS X was built off of an open-source core. It would be foolish to argue that it is an open software.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

AOSP (or if you prefer, Android stripped of GMS) functionality is a well suited mobile platform if one's objective is to deliver a feature phone or dumb phone to market. It includes the fundamental elements (a sound foundation) upon which further software can be layered to enhance platform functionality.

If objectives dictate the full functionality of Android, GMS is required in addition to AOSP. If objectives only dictate a kinda-almost-Androidish-like level of functionality, AOSP plus considerable best coding efforts will suffice, & the platform can then be identified as STANdroid (or Baidu, or ANNEdroid or ...).

Regardless of whatever exacting, brain-numbing, coding gymnastics are applied to AOSP, the very easily understood fact remains that it is pointless for Microsoft to reboot their mobile efforts upon:1.) Android (with GMS), as this business model surrenders the future of MS mobile platforms to Google2.) STANdroid, as this platfom, while retaining control over future GMS-like direction, still fails to provide Android compatibility & sufficient functionality to meet Android-like performance expectations

The absolute best that an Android-based platform reboot can provide to MS is either "6 on one hand" or "1/2 dozen on the other hand". In no eventuality can such a reboot yield the mandatory total of "10 out of 10" required for a serious business to market a serious platform capable of sustaining even the faintest of hopes for "success", however "success" may happen to be defined for a given set of market conditions.

I'm not really discussing the feasibility of MS switching to Android. What I am discussing and refuting is the concept that has repeatedly come up in this thread that, somehow, AOSP isn't a full OS because it lacks the services that are included in GMS -- services that, while extremely popular, are not necessary for day-to-day operations and can be substituted with others (as in the Amazon example). AOSP is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when GMS is installed, in much the same way that Windows is a fully-functional operating system, but not as capable as it is when Office is installed. To say it's not a true operating system because it lacks these extras (popular though they may be), or that Google is somehow evil for only providing source for the basic OS and attendant utilities and not their entire cloud of services, is just silly. Hell, every Windows version prior to 8 lacked many capabilities that are part of GMS; does that mean those weren't true OS's either?

Understood & agreed.

To the benefit of humanity, I don't make my living by writing code, but I do know how stuff works. I thought the article was pretty straight forward, I appreciate Peter's style & thought it was really pretty well written, & yeah, upon completion, the use of "Unforkable" in the title is certainly misleading in a reasonable & literal context. But it was clear from the body of text that Peter neither accepts nor contends that Android is "literally unforkable", so my mindset was to extend the benefit of "Artistic License"; you know, because we're among friends, right?

I'll describe the process of watching this thread progress as a "piquant melange" of intrigue accented by notes of surprise; flashes of humor juxtaposed against moments of modest disquiet; & through it all, it was definitely most dynamic. And this in response to an article that, as I've stated, I felt was really just basically straight forward. Suffice it to say that I wasn't expecting the current of visceral conviction that was quite evident in any of numerous comments. A somewhat opinionated & a driven, scholarly lot, we Arsians, eh?

To echo a comment from earlier:

Quote:

Tom West wrote:Its likely this argument has gone on for 9 pages because people are arguing semantics.

NOTE: From Tom's quote above, I deleted a duplicated "argument" & increased the page count from 8 to 9.

To say it's not a true operating system because it lacks these extras (popular though they may be), or that Google is somehow evil for only providing source for the basic OS and attendant utilities and not their entire cloud of services, is just silly.

Which is why most of the people here aren't really saying they're evil. In fact, Peter has specifically and repeatedly said he thinks it's their right. Google keeping GMS separate is their right, as the authors of the software and, in my opinion, the decision has drastically improved Android. Google very clearly wants to keep control of their software, and that's their choice.

It's not evil. It's not open, either.

And if they take parts of the OS out of open-source and let the old stuff depreciate, they don't get the same level of credit for being open-source, either. They get to choose, it's their right, and whatever they decide, they need to be described accordingly. Android is much less open than it used to be, because the things that used to be a part of Android, the OS, are now built as a part of GMS.

OS X was built off of an open-source core. It would be foolish to argue that it is an open software.

OSX is built off an open-source kernel, but core functional parts are closed-source. In contrast, every core functional part of the Android OS is open-source. GMS is not a core component. It's a ridiculously-popular add-on.

OSX is built off an open-source kernel, but core functional parts are closed-source. In contrast, every core functional part of the Android OS is open-source. GMS is not a core component. It's a ridiculously-popular add-on.

A location API is a core component, in my mind, to a modern OS. That developers can fall back to the inferior API does not change the fact that at one point, Google considered an up-to-date location API as part of the "core" components that were open source. They have absolutely rescinded on that. There's no shame in that, but to deny that they are taking what was open source and, instead of updating and improving that, are creating a new, proprietary versions, flies in the face of reality.

Ditto the mail app. They've depreciated the open version in favor of a proprietary one. There's no technical reason that the gmail app can't be open sourced. It's a conscious decision. One Google has every right to make. It's not an insult to say they're not as open as they used to be. It's reality. And you know what? The Android that users get nowadays is a BETTER PRODUCT because it's less open.

There's no need to defend them. "They're less open" isn't an insult. It's just reality.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

Android = AOSP + GMS.

That's what most people mean when they talk about Android. AOSP is forkable, but doing so for Microsoft would be worse than pointless.

Enough of this unforkable nonsense. Apparently it is so easy to fork, that Nokia did it, in their spare time:

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_emai ... NjEwNDYyWj"The coming Nokia Android phone won't promote Google's Play application store, from which Google takes a percentage of profits. Instead, the phone will come installed with a suite of services created by Nokia and Microsoft, including Here maps and Mix Radio, and a Nokia application store with Android apps. People familiar with the matter say Nokia will show the phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona."

They replaced all the services with their own, which is obviously what any player that has services would want to do anyway.

If Microsoft wanted to do this, it would be trivial, since it is already mostly done by Nokia, that they are acquiring.

But I don't think Microsoft is interested in pushing another companies OS ahead of it's own.

While I don't foresee MS selling Hardware with Android, he paints an interesting picture, where MS makes a fork with it's services available for OEMs to get more people using it's services. I think MS could even offer better App store terms to encourage uptake (the opposite of Amazon's slimy app store agreement).

Why is everyone missing the point Peter is making? Yes, you can fork Android, but why would you? Google pushes developers to build against GMS and they do so. Developers aren't porting their apps to other Android stores.

So what does Nokia get? A Nokia Android phone that will piss off the average user when they can't download the app du jour (which is the problem Windows Phone already has) and that the enterprising user will install Google Play, taking away from what Nokia was trying to do in the first place. It's a no-win situation. I can't see why any company would want that.

OSX is built off an open-source kernel, but core functional parts are closed-source. In contrast, every core functional part of the Android OS is open-source. GMS is not a core component. It's a ridiculously-popular add-on.

A location API is a core component, in my mind, to a modern OS. That developers can fall back to the inferior API does not change the fact that at one point, Google considered an up-to-date location API as part of the "core" components that were open source. They have absolutely rescinded on that. There's no shame in that, but to deny that they are taking what was open source and, instead of updating and improving that, are creating a new, proprietary versions, flies in the face of reality.

Ditto the mail app. They've depreciated the open version in favor of a proprietary one. There's no technical reason that the gmail app can't be open sourced. It's a conscious decision. One Google has every right to make. It's not an insult to say they're not as open as they used to be. It's reality. And you know what? The Android that users get nowadays is a BETTER PRODUCT because it's less open.

There's no need to defend them. "They're less open" isn't an insult. It's just reality.

Core components conspicious in their absence from WinXP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and various MacOS and OSX versions. Are you sure these are required core capabilities? Or perhaps the user should be able to select the software that best fits their needs for location and email. There are a lot of choices for desktop OSes, Android OSes, WinPhone OSes, multiple iOS versions and additional options for devices that don't have a functional OS.

The problem with Windows Phone is that it isn't better than anything else. It doesn't even integrate into Microsoft's own business platforms better than iOS or Android. At the moment there just isn't any reason to buy it over a competing phone except for a how good the Lumia 520/521 is as a phone for the price. Windows Phones currently make good feature phones but they are lacking when compared to other smartphone platforms.

Switching to Android wouldn't help Microsoft any. Microsoft already needs to be making Android and iOS apps to connect to their various services and business apps. The future for Microsoft is services. At some point the desktop monopoly just won't be enough. Android is a better windowing system with desktop mode away from being able to challenge Microsoft on the desktop if Google wanted to try.

Microsoft needs to finish merging Windows Phone and the Windows desktop and server operating systems. They've already started this work but it needs to be sped up. Windows RT needs to be merged into Windows Phone. It would also really help Microsoft, if they would allow sideloading on Windows Phones/RT. I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't pump up the security features and sell it as the new Blackberry to enterprises and governments. It would also help if Office received a touch makeover and included it free on Windows Phone/RT.

The technology behind Windows Phone isn't really what is holding it back. Microsoft has simply been making poor management decisions with the technology they have already developed so far.

I'm sorry to disappoint you Peter. Android had been forked already. Cyanogen, Alliyun, Xaomi, Nook, Kindle. I mean come on. You can even use Google play store with Cyanogen. Please don't misinform your readers.

You know that Google got pissy with Cyanogen because originally Cyanogen bundled GMS, right? And that in current Cyanogen, you back up the GMS parts from your phone's vendor-supplied firmware, install Cyanogen, and then restore the GMS packages that you just backed up, right?

Nook and Kindle just demonstrate how difficult it is to do. Apps that need GMS won't run correctly on Kindle, and most developers do not develop Kindle versions of their apps.

That is a problem with the developers use of cloud-based Google services, not with the OS?

OSX is built off an open-source kernel, but core functional parts are closed-source. In contrast, every core functional part of the Android OS is open-source. GMS is not a core component. It's a ridiculously-popular add-on.

A location API is a core component, in my mind, to a modern OS. That developers can fall back to the inferior API does not change the fact that at one point, Google considered an up-to-date location API as part of the "core" components that were open source. They have absolutely rescinded on that. There's no shame in that, but to deny that they are taking what was open source and, instead of updating and improving that, are creating a new, proprietary versions, flies in the face of reality.

Ditto the mail app. They've depreciated the open version in favor of a proprietary one. There's no technical reason that the gmail app can't be open sourced. It's a conscious decision. One Google has every right to make. It's not an insult to say they're not as open as they used to be. It's reality. And you know what? The Android that users get nowadays is a BETTER PRODUCT because it's less open.

There's no need to defend them. "They're less open" isn't an insult. It's just reality.

Core components conspicious in their absence from WinXP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and various MacOS and OSX versions. Are you sure these are required core capabilities? Or perhaps the user should be able to select the software that best fits their needs for location and email. There are a lot of choices for desktop OSes, Android OSes, WinPhone OSes, multiple iOS versions and additional options for devices that don't have a functional OS.

Desktop OSes are very different beasts than mobile OSes, and yes, this day and age, you need integration into the cloud to be competitive. Google's way of doing things prevents companies such as Samsung to slowly ween itself off of Google's services (e. g. by replacing only maps and Google+ by Facebook, but keep the access to the Play Store, Google search, GMail and other goodies). It's an obvious play, and a good one for Google: they are not doing Android, because they are altruists, they have to pay for the development of Android.

Why is everyone missing the point Peter is making? Yes, you can fork Android, but why would you? Google pushes developers to build against GMS and they do so. Developers aren't porting their apps to other Android stores.

So what does Nokia get? A Nokia Android phone that will piss off the average user when they can't download the app du jour (which is the problem Windows Phone already has) and that the enterprising user will install Google Play, taking away from what Nokia was trying to do in the first place. It's a no-win situation. I can't see why any company would want that.

Bad language below.

Spoiler: show

Because he's using the WRONG WORDS to make his point. If his point is that it's not beneficial/profitable to fork Android, he should FUCKING SAY SO, instead of repeat ad nauseum that ANDROID IS UNFORKABLE -- which is FUCKING WRONG to the point of being retarded.

But then again Ars seems to enjoy the controversy caused entirely by a writer with a bug up his butt refusing to TALK NORMAL ENGLISH.

Core components conspicious in their absence from WinXP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and various MacOS and OSX versions. Are you sure these are required core capabilities?

For a phone OS...absolutely. Conspicuously, you've just tried to say that location isn't important for phones because desktop OSes don't have it, which seems rather...silly. If you can't understand the difference between what is "core" to a phone isn't the same as what is "core" to a desktop, you're going to have some real problems. A microwave doesn't need a dialing system. That doesn't mean that a dialer isn't "core" to a mobile phone.

...oh, and Windows 8 and 8.1 have a location API, so in addition to trying to make a horribly flawed comparison, you're also prima facie wrong just on the facts.

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Or perhaps the user should be able to select the software that best fits their needs for location and email. There are a lot of choices for desktop OSes, Android OSes, WinPhone OSes, multiple iOS versions and additional options for devices that don't have a functional OS.

That still doesn't change the fact that what Google used to offer (location, mail, et cetera) was once open-sourced. They chose, instead of improving those, to leave them and to create proprietary versions.

Again, there is ZERO need to defend them. They haven't done anything wrong. But the contortions that people are going through to defend them strain the boundaries of reason. Just stop.

Enough of this unforkable nonsense. Apparently it is so easy to fork, that Nokia did it, in their spare time:

All signs are pointing to no GMS and limited application compatibility which is, you know, the point.

Of course there is no GMS. Why would Microsoft/Nokia want to promote Google services? The money is in the services.

No it isn't. The money is in the hardware and, secondarily, advertising. Maybe, eventually, in the future, one day, the money will be in the services, but it sure as fuck isn't right now.

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They replaced GMS with their own(as I said above in BOLD), of course, and that is the whole point of a successful fork.

The reason that Charles Arthur et al. said that Microsoft should fork Android is to get access to the Android software ecosystem. If you don't include GMS, you don't get proper access to that Android software ecosystem.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

Android = AOSP + GMS.

That's what most people mean when they talk about Android. AOSP is forkable, but doing so for Microsoft would be worse than pointless.

If the Google vs Oracle court decision w.r.t. APIs gets overturned and APIs are judged as copyrightable it will have a greater impact than just restricting companies from replicating the GMS APIs (and the effects of this on Google using the Java API in Android). That does not even cover if/when people start going after similar APIs (e.g. SAX-based or reader-based XML processing APIs in the different languages/frameworks/libraries).

If another company were to seriously attempt updating the AOSP with GMS APIs, it'd probably be better for Google to throw the Oracle lawsuit, licensing with them, and sue the pants off whoever was trying to wrest that control from them. Now, if the Oracle lawsuit stands, and APIs are not copyrightable, I think it would be hilarious if Oracle did just that, to spite Google.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

Android = AOSP + GMS.

Nope. Android = AOSP. What do you think the A in AOSP stands for, anyway?

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That's what most people mean when they talk about Android. AOSP is forkable, but doing so for Microsoft would be worse than pointless.

That's what Peter's article is saying.

Then why does it claim in the headline that nobody should fork Android and that, in fact, Android is unforkable?

Core components conspicious in their absence from WinXP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and various MacOS and OSX versions. Are you sure these are required core capabilities?

For a phone OS...absolutely. Conspicuously, you've just tried to say that location isn't important for phones because desktop OSes don't have it, which seems rather...silly. If you can't understand the difference between what is "core" to a phone isn't the same as what is "core" to a desktop, you're going to have some real problems. A microwave doesn't need a dialing system. That doesn't mean that a dialer isn't "core" to a mobile phone.

...oh, and Windows 8 and 8.1 have a location API, so in addition to trying to make a horribly flawed comparison, you're also prima facie wrong just on the facts.

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Or perhaps the user should be able to select the software that best fits their needs for location and email. There are a lot of choices for desktop OSes, Android OSes, WinPhone OSes, multiple iOS versions and additional options for devices that don't have a functional OS.

That still doesn't change the fact that what Google used to offer (location, mail, et cetera) was once open-sourced. They chose, instead of improving those, to leave them and to create proprietary versions.

Again, there is ZERO need to defend them. They haven't done anything wrong. But the contortions that people are going through to defend them strain the boundaries of reason. Just stop.

Location services is built into Android

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Location ServicesAndroid gives your applications access to the location services supported by the device through classes in the android.location package. The central component of the location framework is the LocationManager system service, which provides APIs to determine location and bearing of the underlying device (if available).

As with other system services, you do not instantiate a LocationManager directly. Rather, you request an instance from the system by calling getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE). The method returns a handle to a new LocationManager instance.

Once your application has a LocationManager, your application is able to do three things:

Query for the list of all LocationProviders for the last known user location.Register/unregister for periodic updates of the user's current location from a location provider (specified either by criteria or name).Register/unregister for a given Intent to be fired if the device comes within a given proximity (specified by radius in meters) of a given lat/long.For more information about acquiring the user location, read the Location Strategies guide.

Yes Google makes it easy by providing the code to integrate Google maps, but by using Google provided code you are locking yourself out of the mapmaking community.

Email is in a similar position. You can offer your own email service or you can use Android's API to integrate Yahoo Mail, Hot Mail (or whatever it is being called this week ) Microsoft Exchange w/generic Android email app, (note: Outlook uses GMS so it is not a real Android app, it is a Google only app)

Or you can keep it simple and use the AOSP 4.4 email client and connect to the Enterprise MS Exchange server for a fully open source Exchange client.

Now what was that you were saying about missing services? Yes Google services are missing from AOSP, but there are thousands of services missing if you lock into Google.

Enough of this unforkable nonsense. Apparently it is so easy to fork, that Nokia did it, in their spare time:

All signs are pointing to no GMS and limited application compatibility which is, you know, the point.

Of course there is no GMS. Why would Microsoft/Nokia want to promote Google services? The money is in the services.

No it isn't. The money is in the hardware and, secondarily, advertising. Maybe, eventually, in the future, one day, the money will be in the services, but it sure as fuck isn't right now.

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They replaced GMS with their own(as I said above in BOLD), of course, and that is the whole point of a successful fork.

The reason that Charles Arthur et al. said that Microsoft should fork Android is to get access to the Android software ecosystem. If you don't include GMS, you don't get proper access to that Android software ecosystem.

Slight correction Peter. AOSP gives full access to the Android ecosystem. GMS adds access to the Google ecosystem that is built on top of Android. Google<>Android, it is Google Services on Android. Yes nitpicking with Google Services on Android being the dominant player, but it is not Android. When devs use GMS to shorten the development cycle, they assist Google in their goal of shoving everyone else out of the market.

There is nothing wrong with using Google Services per se, but do the extra step of providing the bridge code that allows AOSP devices to access the Google Services. This allows ALL Android devices that are AOSP compatible (can you say Aliyun+Google+Nook+Kindle Fire+base Android as a market) to use your app

Location ServicesAndroid gives your applications access to the location services supported by the device through classes in the android.location package. The central component of the location framework is the LocationManager system service, which provides APIs to determine location and bearing of the underlying device (if available).

As with other system services, you do not instantiate a LocationManager directly. Rather, you request an instance from the system by calling getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE). The method returns a handle to a new LocationManager instance.

Once your application has a LocationManager, your application is able to do three things:

Query for the list of all LocationProviders for the last known user location.Register/unregister for periodic updates of the user's current location from a location provider (specified either by criteria or name).Register/unregister for a given Intent to be fired if the device comes within a given proximity (specified by radius in meters) of a given lat/long.For more information about acquiring the user location, read the Location Strategies guide.

Yes Google makes it easy by providing the code to integrate Google maps, but by using Google provided code you are locking yourself out of the mapmaking community.

So are you shifting positions to acknowledge that location IS a core part of a mobile OS now? And are you willing to concede that Google has deprecated their AOSP location API (which, if I'm not mistaken is the one you just referenced) and replacing it with a proprietary one that cannot be swapped out? Because that's the whole point of the debate, in case you're wondering. Plants verus Zombies 2 uses a Google API that cannot be accessed by a device that doesn't have GSM on it. There's no switching. You either use the old API, or you use a more updated one that requires GSM.

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Email is in a similar position. You can offer your own email service or you can use Android's API to integrate Yahoo Mail, Hot Mail (or whatever it is being called this week ) Microsoft Exchange w/generic Android email app, (note: Outlook uses GMS so it is not a real Android app, it is a Google only app)

Or you can keep it simple and use the AOSP 4.4 email client and connect to the Enterprise MS Exchange server for a fully open source Exchange client.

And again, that is using the older, no longer updated mail API, rather than the updated APIs that GMail uses.

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Now what was that you were saying about missing services? Yes Google services are missing from AOSP, but there are thousands of services missing if you lock into Google.

Uh...I was saying that Google has created a two-tier system of APIs, where before there was a one-tier system. One set, that is updated less frequently, if at all, that is open source and can be used by third parties. The other is proprietary, and only uses GSM, and is updated more frequently. What this means is that, at one point, Google granted AOSP the latest and greatest of their APIs, and they worked off the same playbook. Now, Google is updating their products and not putting those improvement in the open version of their OS.

Nothing you posted contradicts that.

And it still doesn't excuse the fact that I am literally telling you that I think what Google has done is a good thing, and you're still flailing about trying to excuse behavior that doesn't need excusing. I really think you don't understand that the more you argue about it, the worse it looks. Google is improving Android. That's a good thing. It has come at the expense of being as open as they used to be. That's reality.

Location ServicesAndroid gives your applications access to the location services supported by the device through classes in the android.location package. The central component of the location framework is the LocationManager system service, which provides APIs to determine location and bearing of the underlying device (if available).

As with other system services, you do not instantiate a LocationManager directly. Rather, you request an instance from the system by calling getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE). The method returns a handle to a new LocationManager instance.

Once your application has a LocationManager, your application is able to do three things:

Query for the list of all LocationProviders for the last known user location.Register/unregister for periodic updates of the user's current location from a location provider (specified either by criteria or name).Register/unregister for a given Intent to be fired if the device comes within a given proximity (specified by radius in meters) of a given lat/long.For more information about acquiring the user location, read the Location Strategies guide.

Yes Google makes it easy by providing the code to integrate Google maps, but by using Google provided code you are locking yourself out of the mapmaking community.

So are you shifting positions to acknowledge that location IS a core part of a mobile OS now? And are you willing to concede that Google has deprecated their AOSP location API (which, if I'm not mistaken is the one you just referenced) and replacing it with a proprietary one that cannot be swapped out? Because that's the whole point of the debate, in case you're wondering. Plants verus Zombies 2 uses a Google API that cannot be accessed by a device that doesn't have GSM on it. There's no switching. You either use the old API, or you use a more updated one that requires GSM.

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Email is in a similar position. You can offer your own email service or you can use Android's API to integrate Yahoo Mail, Hot Mail (or whatever it is being called this week ) Microsoft Exchange w/generic Android email app, (note: Outlook uses GMS so it is not a real Android app, it is a Google only app)

Or you can keep it simple and use the AOSP 4.4 email client and connect to the Enterprise MS Exchange server for a fully open source Exchange client.

And again, that is using the older, no longer updated mail API, rather than the updated APIs that GMail uses.

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Now what was that you were saying about missing services? Yes Google services are missing from AOSP, but there are thousands of services missing if you lock into Google.

Uh...I was saying that Google has created a two-tier system of APIs, where before there was a one-tier system. One set, that is updated less frequently, if at all, that is open source and can be used by third parties. The other is proprietary, and only uses GSM, and is updated more frequently. What this means is that, at one point, Google granted AOSP the latest and greatest of their APIs, and they worked off the same playbook. Now, Google is updating their products and not putting those improvement in the open version of their OS.

Nothing you posted contradicts that.

And it still doesn't excuse the fact that I am literally telling you that I think what Google has done is a good thing, and you're still flailing about trying to excuse behavior that doesn't need excusing. I really think you don't understand that the more you argue about it, the worse it looks. Google is improving Android. That's a good thing. It has come at the expense of being as open as they used to be. That's reality.

Shifting positions? You claimed they were not there at all.

Mail not updated? V4.4 of AOSP app? That means Version 4.4 Android the latest update

Yes Google forked Android by adding GMS and requiring a Google license to use GMS (BTW license required for proprietary code usually indicates a project is not open source). Does that mean that developers must use the proprietary fork?

No, they can continue to use the open source base Android that continues to receive updates from Google and other contributers.

Is Google required to Open Source Google Services and add them to AOSP because Google is an active contributor to AOSP?

No, those are Google products, and require proprietary bridge code provided under license by Google.

Oddly enough OpenStreetMap and the other alternatives also require developers to provide bridge code. The difference being that the bridge code for open source projects is usually open source. Of course Google offers the advantage that your code will work with 100% of Android devices with the exception of the millions that cannot legally use GMS Open source solutions have a much large market to sell to

Did Google patch the AOSP functions that service the AOSP API? Possibly, but they do not prevent other AOSP developers from patching any errors.

AOSP is open source, it is not a Google proprietary project. Google is NOT responsible for AOSP development. They contribute to AOSP as a participant in the project, not as owner/operator.

As for a 2 tier system of APIs.Kindle Fire is AOSP compatible and adds a second tier of Kindle Fire APIsNook is AOSP compatible and adds a second tier of Nook APIsAliyun is largely AOSP compatible by design and adds a second tier of APIsGoogle is AOSP compatible and adds a second tier of APIs

Google is one of those guilty of fragmenting the market. Developers who are interested in keeping Android a unitary market target AOSP as that is the only tier that an Android developer can assume is available. All the major second tier APIs (including Google's GMS) are proprietary, limited in availability (legal and actual) and fragment the Android ecosystem.

The AOSP set is updated regularly by Google and other contributers. If Google puts more time and effort into developing the Google owned and operated proprietary portion that forces users to go to Google and generate revenue for Google, is that a surprising outcome?

That is no reason to say that failing to make sure you lock your endusers into the Google ecosystem is a good thing ... most people will agree that Microsoft's lock on desktop OS software is a bad thing even as they look for the Windows compatible sticker while choosing software.

Linux and OSX are available, but are often not viable due to the lack of support by developers who choose to target only Windows. You are asking people to support you in elevating Google to a similar position in mobile devices. Ask developers to go the extra mile and offer AOSP compatibility. They get Google compatibility automatically when they help to reduce Android OS fragmentation. Greater reliance on AOSP will also generate developer interest in fixing and extending AOSP...BONUS points!!!

Like most people here said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Google having 2 tiers of API. One open one closed. It just makes people think twice whenever people hear words like "Open" and "Open Source" specially from Google.

The reason that Charles Arthur et al. said that Microsoft should fork Android is to get access to the Android software ecosystem. If you don't include GMS, you don't get proper access to that Android software ecosystem.

No it isn't. The money is in the hardware and, secondarily, advertising. Maybe, eventually, in the future, one day, the money will be in the services, but it sure as fuck isn't right now.

The money is in the HW for Samsung and Apple. I can't think of anyone else who is profitable selling phone HW. Google sure didn't make any money selling Android Phones, and thus they are ditching their Motorola subsidiary.

When I say services, obviously it comes mainly from Advertising on those services. You think Microsoft doesn't advertise on it's services. No one with the capability of providing their own services would want Googles. If Microsoft had any interest in forking, it would look exactly like what Nokia is reported to have done. Even if they could have access to GMS, they wouldn't want it.

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If you don't include GMS, you don't get proper access to that Android software ecosystem.

If you are going to define Android=GMS, then I guess you can claim you can't fork Android, but this is largely a nonsense position. Maybe you should have titled this post. You can't fork GMS.

Only certain types of apps require GMS, things like location based services depending on Google mapping. Someone with deeper pockets like Microsoft could even build a compatible API so it could emulate Google services as well, meaning no porting work for developers.

Its likely this argument argument has gone on for 8 pages because people are arguing semantics.

I suspect for most people, AOSP would not qualify as a mobile O/S because a mobile O/S requires many features that are part of GMS. An analogy would be that most people would not call Linux-without-storage-or-networking-capability a desktop O/S. Pedantically they're wrong, of course, but in the court of public usage, they'd be right.

Open source is mostly a marketing term. The basis of Mac OS is open source, but practically speaking, it means nothing. Peter Bright seems making the claim that the open source-ness of Android has only a marginally usefulness, yet Google has managed to wrap itself in the Open Source flag.

Personally, I agree with him. A mobile O/S is a very different beast, and practically speaking, an open-source mobile O/S *cannot* exist in the same stand-alone way that Linux does. AOSP is definitely more open than anything else out there, but in practical terms if it cannot be used to build a viable full featured competitor to itself without doing a huge amount of work (and you could realistically fork Linux with a single line of code), does the fact that it is Open Source mean anything practical?

Note, that Peter does not imply that Google is evil. In fact, he seems to imply it would be idiotic/suicidal/impractical for Google to open Android enough that it could be practically forked.

Of course, the problem with this point of view is that there are plenty of vendors selling Android devices with alternate service layers to GMS, or without any service layer at all. That would kind of throw the "Android is not a full OS" thing into question, would it not? Certainly, GMS is extremely popular and adds a lot of value to Android, but claiming Androis is not a full OS without GMS is a bit similar to claiming Windows is not a full OS without Office, IMHO.

Android = AOSP + GMS.

Nope. Android = AOSP. What do you think the A in AOSP stands for, anyway?

Actually you are wrong. Android IS GMS + AOSP. Even Google says so - the pure Android experience phones, aka Nexus all include AOSP and GMS. Without GMS AOSP is a pale shadow of actual Android.

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That's what most people mean when they talk about Android. AOSP is forkable, but doing so for Microsoft would be worse than pointless.

That's what Peter's article is saying.

Then why does it claim in the headline that nobody should fork Android and that, in fact, Android is unforkable?

Forking AOSP != forking Android (impossible, because that would include forking GMS).

Forking AOSP is technically feasible, but why would Microsoft want to do it? They wouldn't get the Google Play store, so they wouldn't get app availability. Without GMS they couldn't just ask devs to add their apps to the MS store, because they wouldn't work on Microsoft's "Android" OS. So they'd be in the same position they are now, but without the advantages that using the existing WP kernel gives them - it runs better, has better battery life, is more responsive and advancements are shared between all of thier OSes. But it also has the disadvantages of Windows Phone - still needs to have apps ported to it.